


Objectively Speaking

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Keith does not understand how relationships work, Lance is secretly a nerd, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: Keith discovers the space equivalent of google, except it's about a thousand times more extensive. Naturally, he uses it to get his love life together.Naturally, he kinda fails.





	Objectively Speaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OhHeyAl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhHeyAl/gifts).



> *peeks out from under a table* hello Voltron fandom! You can blame @ohheyal for the existence of this fic, because:
> 
> 1\. She's been spamming me with klance fanart since last year and there's only so much I can take  
> 2\. IT IS HER BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BB I ACTUALLY FINISHED THIS FIC ON TIME SO PLEASE HAVE AN AMAZING BIRTHDAY AND I'M SORRY IF THIS IS A SHITTY FIC

_ does having a fast heartbeat when a specific person comes in mean i’m in love? _

 

The fact that the lions come equipped with the space equivalent of google shouldn’t have surprised Keith as much as it did. The fact that it wasn’t about a thousand times extensive as he’d imagined an alien civilization with ultra advanced tech could have had probably should have.

the fact that he’s using it to search about his love life might be the single most embarrassing thing he’s ever done in his entire life, and yes, he’s counting that time back on Earth with Shiro, a general, and a truly unfortunate shower.

For a giant, expressionless, hulking mass of metal, the blue lion is really good at making feel Keith really, really judged.

He feels so judged right now.

“Shut up,” he tells his lion. “It’s not what it looks like.”

The blue lion doesn’t change expression, doesn’t make a sound, has no discernable change, and Keith knows _ objectively  _ that it can’t do any of those things. Objective knowledge doesn’t stop Keith from wanting to curl into a ball of cringe worthy embarrassment, though.

“It’s for research,” he says. He stares at the ten billion pages worth of search results and feels a bit queasy and a lot overwhelmed. The top results are relationship advice, but they’re for alien civilizations so a lot of them say that you should take into account their antennae, or their burrows, or eggs, or pretty blue plumage, or--

Keith closes all the windows on instinct, face burning. Good to know that almost every species is concerned with reproduction, wherever in the universe they might be.

The blue lion is silent. Keith has never felt more attacked in his life.

 

\--

  
  


Keith has known, from the very beginning, that he’s attracted to Lance. It just was. He doesn’t have very concrete reasons, he just is. Lance was cute but also kind of an asshole, which was just Keith’s type.

But then they discovered giant, flying alien robots, and suddenly they have to save the universe, and the attraction went to the back burner for a while. Keith was happy to let it. He gets… weird when he’s into someone.

What he hadn’t considered was that they would be essentially living together. And be put in high stress situations. A lot. Lance seems to be attracted back to Keith, because contrary to popular belief, Keith does know how to interact with people and it’s hard to mistake someone pulling his pigtails.

There also seemed to be a lot of shirtlessness involved on Lance’s part, which is either Keith’s brain torturing him or Lance’s genuine attempt at flirting. Keith can never tell.

He likes to think it’s the latter, but it’s probably more of the former.

Basically, it’s a bit like being in hormonal hell. Keith is not happy about it. At all.

 

\--

 

_ my skin feels hot but it’s not a fever??? _

 

_ alien diseases a human being can catch _

 

The problem, Keith thinks, is completely and entirely Lance’s fault.

They were supposed to go on a simple shopping trip. A shopping trip. Coran calls it a reconnaissance mission, but it’s really a shopping trip. And since it’s just a shopping trip, it’s just the three of them, armed with a grocery list that everyone else came up with and a huge stack of credits. Keith doesn’t really want to know where the credits came from, or what Hunk could possibly need a wyxian arm for, so he doesn’t ask.

They go to a flea market. Coran pretends he knows what he’s doing. Lance flirts with everything in sight. Keith tries to stay on track but is distracted by alien flight technology that is  _ centuries  _ ahead of Earth’s and definitely not something Allura would let him buy. All in a day’s work, really. The other paladins are worse; Shiro is really bad at interacting with living beings on a day to day basis, while Pidge and Hunk just have a general habit of taking over whichever planet they land on. Keith and Lance being here is, by far, the sanest option.

And if Keith’s cheeks feel a little too hot while watching Lance smile with all his teeth at one of the alien vendors, that’s just standard procedure where Lance is concerned. Keith still hasn’t quite managed to figure that part out yet.

Then, Lance manages to charm ice cream for all three of them for free, and that’s when everything goes wrong.

“Here you go, grumpy-pants,” Lance says, shoving ice cream in a heart shaped cone towards Keith. 

“Don’t call me grumpy pants,” Keith says, but takes the ice cream nonetheless. “I’m not grumpy.” Was he? Keith willingly went out today. To a place with people. To actually interact with people and not fight them. He thinks he’s being very social right now. It’s more than what Shiro and Pidge have done in three months.

“You are a bit grumpy,” Coran says, appearing suddenly by their sides, arms laden with about a car’s worth of goods. Keith makes a mental note never to let him out of his sight ever again, because how even? “Not in a bad way. Well, kind of in a bad way, but it works for you! Gives you all the--”

“I got one for you too, Coran!” Lance says, shoving another ice cream, the cone circle shaped this time, into Coran’s mouth.

“Eat up,” Lance says. “Got those special for you. I had to bring out all of my special Lance charm.” He winks at Keith, like he always does, which seems real and not-real at the same time. Keith rolls his eyes. It’s charming. In a completely objective way.

Keith licks his ice cream and, huh, it almost takes like rocky road and how could Lance have possibly known--

He turns towards Lance to ask, sees him licking his own heart-shaped cone, tongue poking out through pink lips, a bit of ice cream dripping down the corner of his mouth, while his throat works on swallowing, making his adam’s apple bob up and down, and Keith chokes and trips over his feet and…

Well, the less said about  _ that  _ particular incident, the better.

(“We may have nearly started three kinds of interplanetary wars and an accidental soulbonding,” Coran will tell Allura later on. “But it wasn’t  _ all  _ our fault…”

And mid-way through, Allura would raise her hand, sigh, and pinch the bridge of her nose and say,

“Coran stop. I really don’t want to know.”)

 

\--

 

Lance, somehow, managed to find a way to play video games in the deepest recesses of space, which…

If Keith really thinks about it, is completely in-line with their band of weirdos who’ve somehow been put in charge of weapons of mass destruction. They have habits of doing the impossible, so what if Lance uses the impossible to acquire video games?

Thing is, Lance has a habit of staying up all night playing video games. Which actually means that he passes out in random places in the middle of the night playing video games.

Keith walks in the entertainment room and finds Lance passed out in front of the TV, controller still in hand. A bit of drool is falling from his lips and he seems to have found himself in a really uncomfortable position.

Keith’s heart climbs to his throat. There’s no other word he can think to describe Lance now other than ‘adorable.’

He finds a blanket and arranges Lance’s limbs within it, careful not to wake him.

“You’re really annoying, you know that,” Keith whispers.

Lance only snores in reply. Typical.

 

\--

 

_ how do human hormones work in space? _

 

Sparring exercises with Lance are… difficult. In every sense of the world. These are the times when Keith genuinely hates being eighteen and horny and trapped in a place with someone who is way too good looking for the galaxy’s own good.

Anyway.

Sparring with Lance is difficult.

Enough said.

 

\--

 

“--and I've been trying to talk to Keith for ages now but he walks out of the room whenever I walk in! It almost feel like he’s avoiding me!” he hears Lance telling Shiro and there’s a lump in Keith’s throat and he backs out of the situation immediately and…

Runs straight into Hunk.

“You running from something?” Hunk asks sweetly.

Keith crosses his arms over his chest and avoids Hunk’s eyes.

“Going to the sparring room,” he says.

“The sparring room which is that way?” Hunk asks. He points in the exact opposite direction Keith had been going in. The corridor Lance and Shiro had been talking in.

Keith turns on his heel, feeling vaguely nauseous. He’s committed so now he has to pull through, and he has to face Lance and what is Keith supposed to do with the knowledge that he wasn’t being as subtle as he thought but Lance is somehow still getting the wrong idea and--

A hand falls on his shoulder.

“We fight alien monsters,” Hunk says.

“We do,” Keith says, swallowing down the bile in his throat.

“That is probably the scariest thing any human being has any claim on experiencing.”

Keith swallows again. “Objectively,” he says.

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Objectively,” he agrees and drags Keith down the corridor against his will.

 

\--

 

_ i think i have a death wish???? _

 

Surprisingly, it’s Pidge who shouts him down for saving Lance’s life.

“I’m not angry at you for saving his life, you big turd!” Pidge yells at him. Keith tilts his head, feeling very confused and wrong-footed.

“Then why are you angry?” he asks.

“Because you nearly died!”

Keith frowns. Put his hands in his pockets. Stares at Pidge’s small form, angry and looking very ready to punch him. That would be incredibly painful. Keith doesn’t want to be on the wrong end of her right hook, especially for something he doesn’t even know.

“I was trying to save Lance’s life--” Keith tries to explain again, but snaps his mouth shut when he hears a low growl come out from Pidge. He raises his hands and backs away very, very, very slowly.

“Lance didn’t need you to save his life,” Pidge says. “All he had to do was duck! Now the both of you nearly died!”

Keith thinks. Okay, she’s probably right. Lance seemed fully aware that there was a five-foot, poisonous alien spear hurtling towards him, and seemed perfectly read to duck away, but Keith…

Keith’s body didn’t really listen to him at that moment, though. His mouth opened in a cry of, “No!” Then, he tackled Lance to the ground and missed the spear by a hair’s breadth. He only missed it because Pidge managed to slice the spear just in time. 

Keith had just kinda frozen on top of Lance on top of that. In his defense, Lance was also frozen underneath him, staring at Keith, mouth parted in shock.

“Can you just--” Pidge lets out a frustrated noise now and Keith’s attention snaps back to her. “Can you not be an idiot for your boyfriend who’s very capable of defending himself.”

“What?”

A smirk. Pidge is  _ playing  _ with him. The speed with which she can go from furious lecturing to blackmailing is terrifying. “Lance. Your boyfriend. Or this guy you’re madly in love with. I forget.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pidge snorts, but raises her hands defensively. “Don’t care about what you do in your own time, dude. As long as it doesn’t get any of us killed, go crazy.”

Keith splutters. “Pidge!”

Pidge snorts again and gives him a look that just dares him to disagree. Keith learned from the first day that you simply did not disagree with Pidge, because she will undoubtedly find a way prove you wrong in the most humiliating way possible.

Keith doesn’t disagree. He does, however, look back, steadily and unashamedly.

Pidge is probably right. Keith should probably tell her she’s right. But doing that would mean acknowledging things he’d rather not, so he’s just going to look Pidge in the eye and pointedly ignore the problem that she is pointing out.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he deadpans.

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Keith everyone in this ship has these two things called eyes. Even if we didn’t, I’ve seen your search history, dude,” she says, and Keith feels his blood run cold. “Just get it over with and put all of us out of our misery.”

 

\--

 

Lance sometimes reminds Keith of that one cat in the Garrison that had taken a liking to Keith before Keith dropped out.

It had a habit of bringing Keith gifts. Sometimes, they were pretty cool like silver trinkets from other cadets that just happen to be assholes, too, which Keith doesn’t exactly mind. Most times, they were just downright weird, though.

And it’s not like Keith could discourage it because it’s so sweet and adorable and people who discourage sweet and adorable things from being sweet and adorable have a special place in hell.

But then, in Lance’s mind, Keith also seems to have this weird, cool boy reputation that he has to compete with and overcome for some reason. Keith has no idea where it came from, but he hates it with a burning passion.

Everytime Keith tries to make a move, Lance takes it to meaning something else entirely which makes the entire ship look like they want to murder Keith and sends Lance down into another spiral of bringing Keith weird things.

Currently, Keith’s room is filled with different alien stuff ranging from: robot arms, to alien plants, to a glowing rock which may be a piece of jewelry or a bomb. Keith doesn’t have the heart to throw any of them away.

He’s also rapidly finding out that he doesn’t have the guts to ask Lance out, either.

 

\--

 

_ should i _

 

A harsh knocking on the blue lion’s hull interrupts Keith from his furious typing.

“For the love of god, Keith just ask him out already!” Shiro’s voice echoes weirdly through metal, especially when he’s yelling,

“I need to do more research,” Keith yells back because denial is pointless at this point.

"If you do not do something about this in the next twenty-four hours, everyone in the galaxy will know exactly what you did to the Brigadier-General’s office in your first week,” Shiro threatens, which, Keith has to admit, is pretty effective.

“You wouldn’t,” is the only thing he can say.

“Pidge already has the footage,” Shiro says, and that’s the end of that.

 

\--

 

_ how to tell if someone likes me back? _

 

Keith has three hours left before the footage goes out and he’s quietly panicking. He tried doing more research but that didn't really go anywhere. Keith is very good at quietly panicking. 

Apparently, the situation is suddenly out of his hands. Keith doesn't know what to think when Lance saunters into the training room, shoulders tense but not tense. The kind of tense he gets when he's trying to look nonchalant and cool and failing miserably. Keith is particularly fond of that look.

Lance zeroes in on Keith almost immediately. His eyes narrow and his lips turn upwards into a smirk. 

"We're going to the couch," Lance says and doesn't wait for Keith to answer, just drags him towards the nearest couch. 

"I'm going to tell you something," he says. Keith swallows and opens his mouth to say 'me too' but Lance presses a finger to his lips and Keith's brain narrows to just that spot.

"Ah, ah, ah," Lance say. "I have to get this over with or we'll be here all day."

Keith nods. Lance drops his hand.

Lance presses close to Keith, throwing an arm over his shoulder, wide grin on his face, and eyebrows doing really weird things. Keith thinks his mouth may be open in shock, if he can actually think anything past ‘holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit it’s lance shit shit shit’.

“So,” Lance says, drawing the word out unnecessarily long. “Video games.”

Keith’s brain is having a bit of trouble functioning right now. It’s aware of Lance pressed to his side, like really, really close to his side. It’s aware of the fact that Lance runs unusually hot, like a furnace in the cold void of space. It’s aware of Lance leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder, breath tickling his ear.

It takes a while for it to process what Lance is actually saying. When it does, whatever’s left of Keith’s brain that’s capable of processing power just…

Just kinda stutters to a stop.

“Video games?” he repeats blankly. 

“Video games,” Lance confirms. “It’s like a metaphor. We fight monsters. I fight monsters in video games? Do you get me here?”

Keith thinks. Tries to force himself to think. It’s pretty hard to do when all he can focus on his the weight of Lance’s arm on his shoulder.

“You’re not making sense,” he says.

"I am so making sense," Lance says.

"You're really not."

"I am!"

"Uh--No."

"Well, if you'd let me finish!"

This, Keith thinks distantly, is going the exact opposite of how he wants it. Most of his conversations with Lance do. Maybe space google can help with that.

"Explain again," Keith tries. "Slowly."

Lance makes a frustrated noise. “Shit-okay this is not working. Shiro told me, but--I’m just going to go now.” He makes a move to get up, then stops, staring at Keith. Keith realizes, belatedly, that he’s holding onto Lance’s arm in a vice grip.

“I don’t get the metaphor,” Keith says. “Explain.”

Lance sighs and sits back down. “Something my sister said once. I don’t get it, either.”

“What were you trying to say?”

Lance stares at him. “You’re really going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“Say what?”

Lance sighs heavily. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says, and Keith’s breath catches in his throat. 

“You think so?” He thinks he may have stopped breathing. His heart definitely stopped beating.

“Fuck it,” Lance says before descending on Keith. He cradles Keith’s face with his hands, pressing their foreheads and noses together.

“Tell me if I’m misinterpreting this,” Lance murmurs. Keith wants to tell him that he can’t even form thoughts let alone  _ talk,  _ but…

All he can do is nod. Shaking his head is not even an option. Lance grins, letting out a quiet laugh and there’s a moment where the two of them just exchange breath, and there’s something almost intoxicating about it, about how Lance’s warm breath is tickling its way into Keith’s throat.

Then, Keith leans upward and their lips lock and Keith stops trying to think entirely.

 

_fini_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](https://discowlng.tumblr.com) y'all.


End file.
